Fatimah Rahimi, researcher
“The fact a woman or girl changes her timetable or route for fear of being attacked should make us question the freedom of access of all citizens to the public transport service.”
These words, spoken by former French Sports Minister Roxana Maracineanu, expose a harrowing truth concealed beneath the polished façade of France’s cities and streets.
In recent years, insecurity in public spaces – particularly at night – has become one of the primary concerns of women in France. Many report experiencing various forms of harassment and sexual assault while using public transportation. According to official statistics, more than 87% of French women have been harassed at least once on public transport. Such incidents most frequently occur in metro stations, inside subway cars, and around bus stops.
A particularly disturbing case was the brutal attack on a young woman at Paris’s Châtelet metro station in late 2022, which left her seriously injured. Reports from 2025 indicate that 7 out of 10 women in the Île-de-France region currently experience sexual violence and gender-based discrimination on public transport. 56% of women in Île-de-France report feeling unsafe on public transport – a figure that escalates to 81% after 10 p.m.
In response to the growing insecurity in the country, Anne-Margaux Dossal, founder of the Athena Network, addressed reports of a rape aboard the Île-de-France region’s RER C commuter train during an interview with BFM TV on October 27, 2025. She raised the following question:
Despite France’s long-standing slogan of equality, are women and men truly equal in public spaces?
She noted that 87% of women are victims and stressed that addressing their safety is a matter of urgent priority.
Subsequently, a petition was launched on the website changer.org, calling for women-and-children-only carriages on public transport in the Île-de-France region to prevent sexual harassment and gender-based discrimination. To date, the petition has gathered nearly 30,000 signatures.
This measure has previously been implemented in countries such as Japan and Mexico, where it has received public approval. The initiative now appears to have crossed the English Channel, reaching the UK and other European countries, as British women – one month after France – launched a petition campaign on November 27, 2025, demanding the allocation of women-only carriages on public transportation.
Nevertheless, authorities in both France and the UK continue to favor alternatives to segregation, emphasizing measures such as increased personnel, additional CCTV surveillance, and expanded emergency response systems. The proposal to designate women-only carriages on metros and buses, however, appears to be a practical and rational solution – a direct response to the public demand who seek safety for their women and daughters. Countries such as Iran, Japan, India, and Egypt have provided such accommodations for years, with documented positive outcomes. Yet, this straightforward and feasible idea appears to face opposition from two irrational fronts: on the one hand, government authorities, and on the other, radical feminist movements that view the proposal as a form of “gender segregation” and a step backward.
This opposition contains a perspective marked by a clear contradiction: it claims that, rather than establishing safe environments, society should normalize all forms of sexual expression and behavior in public spaces by promoting absolute sexual freedom.
For decades, the West – led by the cultural influence of countries like France – has presented itself, under the rhetoric of “freedom” and “equality,” as the principal defender of women’s rights and the self-appointed judge on women’s issues in other cultures and civilizations. From a stance of superiority, it condemned measures intended to protect societal boundaries, such as the separation of women’s and men’s spaces in the Islamic Republic of Iran, labeling them as forms of “discrimination” and “restriction.”
Today, however, the track record of these very claimants stands as a testament to the disgraceful failure of the Western model in addressing the women’s issues – in the very arena where it has always claimed superiority.
Yet, the issue is not confined merely to segregating metro carriages to ensure women’s safety; this is but the tip of the iceberg of a much larger social catastrophe.
In such a situation, the moral sensibility of Western women – weary of illusory freedoms and of being reduced to instruments of consumerism and the hedonism of the capitalist market – is gradually awakening to a fundamental truth: what they need to safeguard their dignity and security lies not in the extremes of Western liberalism, but rather within the balanced and rational framework of genuine Islam as taught by Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).
This contrast between the two approaches is captured in the words of Imam Khamenei: “The Western view of women is perverted, flawed, misleading and simply wrong. The Islamic view of women brings about dignity, honor, growth and an independent identity for women: this is our assertion, and we can prove it with extremely compelling evidence.”
Now, the fundamental question arises: is a woman who hides herself in the corners of the Paris Metro for fear of harassment freer, or a woman who, within the secure and respectful environment of Iranian society, can maintain her hijab and personal boundaries while participating actively and without anxiety in scientific, managerial, and social spheres?
Therefore, what we are witnessing today is a historic return. It appears that women within Western societies – who consider themselves progressive – are now, after bearing heavy and at times irreparable costs, beginning to grasp the profound wisdom behind Islamic rulings. They have come to realize that genuine equality does not lie in abolishing boundaries between women and men, but in recognizing the inherent dignity and status of women and creating a safe environment for their comprehensive growth. The failure of the Western model heralds a new awakening – one in which the guiding light for the future of Western women will be illuminated not by the hollow slogans of the West, but by the transcendent vision of Islam.
On this matter, Imam Khamenei has stated:
“The primary issue for women is not whether or not they hold a job. The main issue which has unfortunately gone [unnoticed] in the West today, is the [need for] feeling tranquility, safety, and being able to flourish without being subjected to injustice in the society, family, marital or parental home.… If the woman does not have a safe and secure environment to study, work, earn money, and rest, she is oppressed.”
(The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Khamenei.ir.)
